The American Library Association (ALA) has stressed that its decision to drop Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from its children’s literature award due to racist sentiments in her books is not “an attempt to censor, limit, or deter access” to the Little House on the Prairie author’s books.

The organisation announced on Sunday that the board of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) had voted 12 to zero in favour of changing the name of the Laura Ingalls Wilder award to the Children’s literature legacy award. The prize was first awarded in 1954 to Wilder herself, and has been won by some of America’s best-loved children’s authors, from EB White to Beverly Cleary.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's name removed from book award over racism concerns

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The ALA first proposed a possible name change in 2017, feeling that its values of diversity and inclusion were not consistent with the “complex legacy” of Wilder, “as her books reflect racist and anti-Native sentiments and are not universally embraced”.

Wilder’s legacy has long been controversial due to the attitudes in her autobiographical novels. The phrase “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”, is repeated three times in Little House on the Prairie, while in On the Banks of Plum Creek, Mary tells Laura: “You’ll be brown as an Indian, and what will the town girls think of us?” In Little Town on the Prairie, Laura’s father takes part in a minstrel show, while Laura’s mother’s dislike of Native Americans is made clear: “She looked as if she were smelling the smell of an Indian whenever she said the word. Ma despised Indians. She was afraid of them, too.”

The ALA cited an article by the academic Frances Kaye in its decision where she wrote: “I honestly cannot read Little House on the Prairie as other than apology for the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Great Plains.”

Another academic, Debbie Reese, whose focus is the representation of Native Americans in children’s books, responded to the ALA’s decision: “Wilder’s depictions of African Americans and Native people are flawed and racist. Some will argue that at the time she wrote the books, things like blackface and stereotyping weren’t seen as wrong. But, of course, African Americans and Native peoples knew them to be wrong.”

In a survey of librarians, around 300 ALA members said the prize’s name should be changed, and around 150 said it should not. Those who supported the change cited racism and the negative impact of Wilder’s books on child readers amongst their reasons. Those against changing the name cited censorship, “bowing to PC pressure”, and not judging people from the past by today’s standards.

In a joint statement by ALA president Jim Neal and ALSC president Nina Lindsay acknowledged that Wilder’s books were “deeply meaningful to many readers”, and that the series “holds a significant place in the history of children’s literature”. But they said the books are also “a product of [Wilder’s] life experiences and perspective as a settler in America’s 1800s”, and therefore “reflect dated cultural attitudes toward indigenous people and people of colour that contradict modern acceptance, celebration, and understanding of diverse communities”.

Neal and Lindsay said changing the name of the award should not be viewed as an attempt to censor Wilder’s books, “but rather as an effort to align the award’s title with ALSC’s core values”, stressing that the change “should not be viewed as a call for readers to change their personal relationship with or feelings about Wilder’s books”.

“We are not demanding that anyone stop reading Wilder’s books, talking about them, or making them available to children. We hope adults think critically about Wilder’s books and the discussions that can take place around them,” they said.

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The ALA is now looking to examine its other prizes, including the Geisel award, to see if further changes need to be made. Geisel, named for Theodore Geisel or The Cat in the Hat author Dr Seuss, has also come under recent scrutiny, with a US librarian arguing last year that his illustrations “are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes”.